Four pivotal moments in Tuesday’s debate, from Benghazi to ‘binders full of women’

For most American voters, presidential campaign debates come down to memorable moments that come to summarize 90 minutes of back-and-forth. Here are four pivotal moments in Tuesday night’s debate at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y.:

1. “Binders full of women”

This year, social media has replaced pundits and spinners as the most important agenda setters in presidential campaign. A case in point was Romney’s clumsy comment that he relied “binders full of — of women” to fill jobs in his Massachusetts administration. The phrase instantly became a trending topic on social media and has remained a popular subject (of ridicule and commentary) for the day after the debate.

MODERATOR CANDY CROWLEY: Governor Romney, pay equity for women.

MITT ROMNEY: Thank you. And — important topic and one which I learned a great deal about, particularly as I was serving as governor of my state, because I had the — the chance to pull together a Cabinet and all the applicants seemed to be men. And I — and I went to my staff, and I said, how come all the people for these jobs are — are all men?

They said, well, these are the people that have the qualifications. And I said, well, gosh, can’t we — can’t we find some — some women that are also qualified?

And — and so we — we took a concerted effort to go out and find women who had backgrounds that could be qualified to become members of our cabinet. I went to a number of women’s groups and said, can you help us find folks? And I brought us whole binders full of — of women.

Strange way to put it. Because of the new world of social media, it is sure to go down in presidential debate lore. As ABC News reported:

A new “Tumblr” account popped up with images inspired by the comment, including one from the now-famous “Texts from Hillary” meme.

“Romney still uses binders? LOL,” read the caption attached to a photo of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

A freshly minted Twitter account “@RomneysBinder” tweeted out: “Boy, I’m full of women! #debates” and by the end of the debate had more than 30,000 followers. A second @Romneys_Binder handle netted more than 12,000 followers by the end of the debate.

A fake “Binders Full of Women” Facebook account launched shortly after, along with several others. And the BindersFullofWomen.com domain name was purchased just minutes after the comments came from Romney’s mouth.

And then there was the photo of Playboy founder Hugh Hefner in his mansion library, noting, “Binders full of women. Oh sure, I have hundreds of them.”

Mitt Romney’s comment became an instant Internet sensation.

2. Candy Crowley agrees with Obama

Debate moderators rarely become key players in debates. But CNN’s Candy Crowley became the first moderator since Bernard Shaw, also of CNN, in 1988 to become an integral part of the story.

How did she do it? She agreed with President Obama that Romney had misstated the facts concerning Obama’s response to the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi that killed the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other Americans.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: The day after the attack, governor, I stood in the Rose Garden, and I told the American people and the world that we are going to find out exactly what happened, that this was an act of terror…

MS. CROWLEY: Governor, if you want to reply just quickly to this, please.

MR. ROMNEY: Yeah, I — I certainly do. I certainly do. I — I think it’s interesting the president just said something which is that on the day after the attack, he went in the Rose Garden and said that this was an act of terror. You said in the Rose Garden the day after the attack it was an act of terror? It was not a spontaneous demonstration?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Please proceed.

MR. ROMNEY: Is that what you’re saying?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Please proceed, governor.

MR. ROMNEY: I — I — I want to make sure we get that for the record, because it took the president 14 days before he called the attack in Benghazi an act of terror.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Get the transcript.

MS. CROWLEY: It — he did in fact, sir…

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Can you say that a little louder, Candy? (Laughter, applause.)

An easy way to tell that the exchange was getting traction: Conservatives attacked Crowley for showing pro-Obama bias. And Obama critics began parsing every word, noting that he used the word “terror” and not “terrorism.”

Not exactly how Republicans wanted the debate over the Libya incident to unfold. Romney will have one last chance to get it right at the final debate in Boca Raton, Fla., next Monday.

Neither candidate directly answered a question about what they would do about immigrants living illegally in the U.S. But somehow, the immigration obfuscation suddenly shifted to an exchange about pensions. The two candidates circled each other as Romney asked Obama, “Have you looked at your pension?” Here’s what followed:

PRESIDENT OBAMA: (Inaudible) — Candy —

MR. ROMNEY: Have you looked at your pension?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: I’ve got to say —

MR. ROMNEY: Mr. President, have you looked at your pension?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: You know, I don’t look at my pension. It’s not as big as yours, so it — it doesn’t take as long. The —

The exchange gave Obama the opportunity to cut the tension with some humor and reinforce that he isn’t as rich as Romney. It played into the stereotypes that Romney is a plutocrat more concerned with making money than creating American jobs.

And it all started with a Romney non-answer to a question about his advocacy of “self-deportation” during the Republican primary season.

Just because you lose a debate means that you have no highlight reel material. If Romney ends up winning the election, it will be because voters conclude, as he says, that the economy is unlikely to get any better over the next four years with Barack Obama in the White House.

When an undecided voter told the incumbent that he has had four tough years since voting for Obama in 2008, the president recited a laundry list of accomplishments, including the death of Osama bin Laden and the end of the Iraq war. Romney zeroed in on the question with a cogent and powerful answer:

I — I think you know that these last four years haven’t been so good as the president just described and that you don’t feel like you’re confident that the next four years are going to be much better either. I can tell you that if you were to elect President Obama, you know what you’re going to get. You’re going to get a repeat of the last four years. We just can’t afford four more years like the last four years.

He said that by now we’d have unemployment at 5.4 percent. The difference between where it is and 5.4 percent is 9 million Americans without work…

This is a president who has not been able to do what he said he’d do. He said that he’d cut in half the deficit. He hasn’t done that either. In fact, he doubled it…

The middle class is getting crushed under the policies of a president who has not understood what it takes to get the economy working again. He keeps saying, look, I’ve created 5 million jobs. That’s after losing 5 million jobs…

The president has tried, but his policies haven’t worked.

That may be why uncommitted voters who watched the debate said Romney, by a margin of nearly than 2-to-1 in a CBS News poll, would better handle the economy.